The National Right to Life Convention is being held this week in New Orleans, Louisiana and several 2016 GOP Presidential contenders are slated to address the crowd.

This morning there will be a a Presidential candidate forum including Dr. Ben Carson, Gov. Rick Perry, Hon. Rick Santorum and Sen. Marco Rubio.

First to address convention goers was Sen. Marco Rubio and twitter was alive with tweets as he came to the podium:

Steven Ertelt, founder of Life News who is at the conference quoted Rubio from his address:

“Being a candidate for president, I give a lot of speeches on a lot of issues – and they are all important political and policy issues that confront our country. But the issue we are here to discuss today – the issue of life – is not a political issue, nor is it strictly a policy issue,” he said. “It is a definitional issue – an issue about what sort of society we want to have.”

Rubio says it is “is fundamentally impossible for America to reach her destiny as a nation founded on the equal rights of all if our government believes an entire segment of the human population doesn’t have a right to exist. And that’s why the issue of life is more than political or policy-related. It is a definitional issue about the kind of country we want to be. In a world where life is increasingly not valued, where people are summarily discarded, America must stand for the belief that all life is worthy of protection, because all life comes from God.

“Every single person alive today was once that grainy ultrasound picture. And it is deeply disturbing for us to think of anyone – whether a parent, or a politician, or a Supreme Court justice – having a debate about our own viability as a person, at that stage or any stage. For our cause to triumph, we must help people extend that understanding of innate value to those they cannot see,” he said. “But this requires a great deal of love and care. For we know that the decision facing so many women and young girls is achingly complicated – the 15 year old with her whole life ahead of her, the young single woman who struggles to provide for herself and can’t imagine handling the costs of a child, the mom and dad faced with the knowledge that their child will be born with unique challenges.”

According to WGNO, during Jindal’s speech Thursday night, Jindal told the crowd that, while he expects to meet people on the other side of the pro-life issue, he thinks abortion supporters are open to change, and he bases that views on his faith.

“We are called by scripture. We are told to treat and love others the way we want to be treated in life. Even those we disagree with. I also view those who aren’t pro-life as not pro-life yet,” Jindal said.

He declared July 9-11th “Louisiana Pro-Life Days” in honor of the pro-life event.

Hon. Rick Santorum told the group Friday morning that he and his family not just politically pro-life but they “live pro-life.”

“I don’t believe life begins at conception, I know life begins at conception!” he recounted as a response to a question he was given in previous debates.

Santorum spoke solemnly about how he failed to speak up for the unborn as he should have when he first came to office. He was then confronted with partial birth abortion and said at that point he “just couldn’t say nothing anymore.”

“It’s one thing to be pro-life…but if you stand up….you pay a price…you will be put over on the fringe of the Republican party,” he said.

“They are counting good men and women to do nothing, because that’s what we’ve done,” he stated, listing the removal of prayer from schools and the slaughter of millions of innocent children from abortion.

“And we have sat like a frog sitting in the pot…but one day you’re going to wake up and say what happened over my watch in America?”

Santorum warned against nominating a candidate who will talk about pro-life issues and never do anything, “This is not time for the faint of heart. There is no time for lip service…I need your help and your prayers and so does America,” he said in closing.

While the Republican presidential field is loaded, only one contender will face off with radically pro-abortion Democrat Hillary Clinton who once praised the racist founder of Planned Parenthood.

The NRTL convention is slated to address the following topics among others:

Pro-Life Concerns About Girl Scouts
Abortion Techniques in all Three Trimesters of Pregnancy
Is Doctor-Prescribed Suicide Coming to Your State Next?
Challenges to Post-abortion awareness
Fighting Goliath: How to Take Aim at Planned Parenthood
The Escalating Struggle at the UN to Prevent the Establishing of Abortion as a Fundamental Human Right WorldwidePredatory Relationships, Sex Trafficking, and AbortionMargaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood
Web-Cam & Chemical Abortions
The Myth of the “Unwanted” Child: Special Needs Adoption
Protecting Unborn Children from Dismemberment Abortions Across the United States
Why Abortion Numbers are Really, REALLY Down
Disabilities, Discrimination and Prenatal Testing